Beware the Hundesalon!

There's an apparent inequity in hair growth rate between the boys and girls in our family. Everyone received a haircut in Chicago immediately before our departure almost eight weeks ago (clarification: all different barbers) yet only the boys have required Swiss haircuts so far. And since usually mundane tasks like haircuts now transform into exciting new challenges, we've been anxiously anticipating Hobbes's first Swiss grooming.

The landlady Ms. D made our appointment two weeks ago, right after an unfortunate "incident". You see, one morning I was sitting on the bed, leaning over and tying my boots preparing for Hobbes's and my customary 75 minute jaunt. And Hobbes got excited because he knows he's going for a walk, so he ran up with his body between my legs near my head, and his odor was so terrifically terrible that I blacked out and collapsed and woke up 2 minutes later on the bedroom floor when he started impatiently licking my face because we weren't outside yet. His breath actually shocked me back to consciousness like smelling salts, but I won't dwell on those details. Needless to say, immediately after the walk I rang and asked Ms. D to please help locate a groomer.

Of course Steph and I already tried to locate one by Googling the English phrase "Zurich dog groomer," but only groomers near Lake Zurich, IL (so close to home!) showed up. Ms. D of course divined the magic words in German instead, either Tierecoiffure ("animal haircut") or Hundesalon ("salon for dogs"). Try Googling "Zurich hundesalon," now that's a goldmine! Actually, because nobody living in Kloten likes going to Zürich (thus they live in Kloten, yes?), she found a hinterland Hundesalon in a tiny village called Breite. Now when a Kloten resident calls something a village, expect a real village--perhaps two dozen houses and a pub on a hilltop somewhere with more livestock than humans.

So Ms. D found and called a groomer and reported back to me, albeit with a few confusing iterations required to iron out questions about washing vs. actual haircutting (both, please!) and some concerns with hefting his healthy 40kg (88 lb.) girth. Regardless, despite the salon's tight schedule, we successfully booked an appointment for two weeks out...Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 1pm. Very exciting! And after examining the tricky bus connections required to go from Kloten to Breite, Ms. D first offered and later insisted that she drive us instead. As the Germans say, Gott sei Dank!, thank God for that!

Tuesday at 12:30pm we bustled His Smelliness into the back seat of Ms. D's car and wound uphill away from Zürich through smaller and smaller towns, nearly driving past Breite fifteen minutes later. Because Swiss are always on time for appointments--never early and never late--we spent ten more minutes examining some interesting farmland on the Breite hilltop in bitingly cold wind (Hobbes enjoyed it). Then we struggled to find any semblance of a business near the address provided, eventually guided by a worn, 5-foot-tall cartoon dog & cat chalkboard half-hidden behind a tree and guttural directions from an extremely elderly neighbor (this was the groomer's mother, I came to find) to some nearby house's basement stairs. We knocked on the basement door and...voila!

The Hundesalon was less of a business than a woman's hobby. The basement contained all the required but somewhat rudimentary equipment, and certainly not an overly professional atmosphere. The groomer lady probably needed the two week warning to fix the jack on her ancient grooming table. She and Ms. D, speaking exclusively in Swiss-German of course, appeared not to hit it off and I later discovered why. Practically the groomer's first words to us were, "He's too fat! We can't do it!" (the woman feared lifting him due to her bad back). Ms. D said later that this really pissed her off because, I quote, "Nobody calls my Hobbes fat!" He has this effect on people, it's inexplicable. The groomer apparently also said she owns two large dogs but never grooms them...ever. Um, OK. That's why you groom other people's dogs then?

Too late to turn back, so I helped lift him into the tub and we waited throughout the entire shampooing and rinsing for me to assist lifting him out and onto the grooming table (I've never actually seen him bathed before, he hates the shampoo but likes the warm rinse). She handled him well enough and spoke lots of cutesy Swiss-German dog-talk, so I felt comfortable enough to leave him for the two hour (lotsa hair) air-drying and grooming. Ms. D and I walked the 30 steps downtown to Breite's only pub, killing two hours with lots of interesting conversation interspersed with various espressos, dry cider and some fantastic sandwiches on crusty country bread with delicious country ham. Those Swiss country folks make a mean sandwich!

We returned after exactly two hours to find her finishing up, with at least 20kg of hair in the corner (she kept it there to show us...professional?). She did an OK job, like a hobbyist would, not terrible. Also Ms. D had told me at the pub that she didn't trust the shampoo the woman used because it didn't bubble, so immediately after walking in the door Ms. D made a show of bending over and smothering her nose in his fur, verifying he truly smelled clean (I can't make this up!). After a few additional minutes of presumably polite verbal sparring between the Swiss-German ladies, they wound down and I paid the WHOPPING fee (although Steph and I had each individually guessed it to the exact Franc) and we bid Auf Wiedersehen to both the Hundesalon and Breite. A grooming always wipes out Hobbes, but this Hundesalon seemed to wear on him a bit more, as he slept virtually nonstop for two days. Ms. D apologized profusely for taking us there (of course she was completely innocent and we couldn't have accomplished ANYTHING without her). But needless to say, Hobbes's next appointment with be with a Big City Hundesalon, I'm sure I can find a decent sandwich while I wait.

The Hash Browns Ditch

The Swiss Hash Browns Ditch and Other Cultural Divides

Unbelievably, less than seven weeks in the European country somewhat noted for its xenophobia, we attended our first Swiss-hosted dinner party last Saturday evening. Even more unbelievably, we were actually invited.

Our neighbor and temporary-apartment landlady, so welcoming and helpful since our arrival, fulfilled her mention during our original ice-breaking, gin-tasting conversation of hosting a dinner party to also include her neighboring good friends--all our front doors are within fifteen feet of each other. Luckily I'd softened up the neighbors several weeks prior by offering a bottle of wine accompanied by a German thank you note (I'm dangerous with the German notes) for allowing our initially-unwitting use of their basement storage area for our empty suitcases and mammoth dog crate. Steph and I always believe the way to the heart is through the liver. Therefore likewise during our Saturday afternoon Zürich shopping spree--again surprisingly routing us through Globus-Bellevueplatz--we brought home a gift-wrapped bottle of premier Scottish Hendrick's gin as dinner party thanks for the landlady.

Hobbes was regrettably doubly uninvited due to the landlady owning cats and to his party penchant for gulping entire blocks of stinky cheese when people aren't looking. Kissing him goodbye at 5:59 and 50 seconds PM, we took one step outside our door, rang the landlady's doorbell and were admitted at 6pm sharp; the neighbors, Mr. & Mrs. A, had already arrived. Mr. A speaks very good English, however, Mrs. A understands only some and speaks even less, which actually made the evening more entertaining as the conversations see-sawed between English and Swiss-German as the landlady (Ms. D) and Mr. A translated. Situated near the wood-burning fireplace, we started with glasses of Prosecco and got down to socializing.

We began by establishing that metro Chicago is more populous than all of Switzerland. They appreciated our attempts at learning several Swiss-German words. We chatted a little about jobs and early years, Mr. and Mrs. A grew up in neighboring villages in central Switzerland and had lived in Zürich 20 years or more ago before moving to Kloten. Our Swiss hosts were older than Steph and me, just a few years younger than our parents. Our landlady is half-Dutch, renowned for their friendliness, which explains her un-Swiss extroverted and convivial nature. Of course we wouldn't have been invited to dinner so quickly by a 100% Swiss! As the conversation unfolded, Mr. A appeared "progressive" Swiss, more comfortable with foreign viewpoints and the current-day practicalities of a shrinking globe, while Mrs. A interjected with "conservative" or more classically Swiss sequestered opinions and questions; of course our mutual explanations were unfairly hampered with Mrs. A due to the language barrier.

After two bottles of sparkling wine for warmup, dinner unfolded, beginning with an excellent avocado and grapefruit salad. We then moved to Italian red wine and the main course. Ms. D is incredibly sweet as she prepared my "favorite" Kalbsgeschnetzeltes, veal in mushroom cream sauce, alongside the usual accompaniment of hash browns or Rösti, because I previously explained to her that I was testing them everywhere I went. She divulged the secret to good Rösti is cooking and grating the potatoes a day before, keeping them in the fridge and then frying them while still cold, so the outside becomes crusty brown; she also demonstrated the classic Rösti flip onto an inverted pan lid to then slide them back into the frying pan to brown the other side. And no lie, her homemade Kalbsgeschnetzeltes was by far the best we've had in Zürich.

So we talked and talked and talked. We received an in-depth Swiss history lesson, explaining that Switzerland was the world's first democracy and that its current country code, CH (as Steph and I had noted, inexplicably not an abbreviation for the German or French or Italian word for Switzerland), is actually Latin for Confoederatio Helvetica, derived from original Roman influence. Importantly, we clarified the makeup of Heidelberg's Fire Pliers Punch--actually our translation was correct--in which a cone of burning sugar (not fruit) is doused with flaming rum (not schnapps); the burning cone can only be moved with smith's tongs or pincers, thus Fire Pliers. Our Swiss hosts had never stopped to consider their farewell salutation of, "Merci vielmals, ciao!" as an amusing blend of three languages, they simply considered it Swiss. Their esteem of me was disappointingly not elevated by my ingestion of Migros' Pferde steak, in fact they were nonplussed and don't eat it themselves (I was duped!)

Of course we talked in depth about politics, both U.S. and Swiss, and religion and Germany, the "Big 3" taboo subjects (the Swiss generally don't like Germans all that much). We learned of Switzerland's Röstigraben, literally the Hash Browns Ditch, which is the invisible line in western Switzerland where the culture and cuisine shifts from Swiss-German to Swiss-French and hash browns disappear from the dinner menus. We learned the very useful term for "bloody foreigners" in German, verdammt Ausländer. We promised to invite them all to dinner in the big city once we're settled in our new apartment. And because we can't help ourselves, we extolled the virtues of traditional authentic Mexican food, not just the usual pedestrian tacos or burritos. Ready for the best part? They had never heard of a taco or a burrito. Not that they hadn't ever tried one, you see. They had never even heard the words! So the moles and rajas and such in our minds are probably a stretch. If we ever do host dinner, we'll probably stick with something slightly more familiar. Like French.

We stopped eating for a smoke break before dessert, with cigarettes or cigars all around (Steph was the only one not smoking but her clothes couldn't tell the difference). Dessert was chocolate cream, like a cold soup. Then of course came coffee and espresso. And then a choice of eight different bottles of grappa and/or eaux de vie. I'm telling you, we'll need to stock back up before hosting any European dinner parties, they're serious here. Finally at 12:30am we departed, but not before opening our front door, waking Hobbes and all five people scratching his tired head.

Overall the evening was extremely enjoyable and I believe that Steph and I represented ourselves fairly well. And ever since then, you'll never guess what's happened. We've passed by Mrs. A several times in the neighborhood, you know, the more guarded and traditional classic Swiss type with a healthy distrust of foreigners. And she smiles and calls out hello and seems genuinely pleased to see us. Funny how that works.

The Mice Eat Horse

The shoe belongs on the other foot these days concerning work travel, as the past several years' pattern saw Steph traveling a mere handful of times per year and Todd departing for short trips nearly every week. Last week Steph took her second overnight work trip since our European arrival, first to Milan and now to Berlin. Funny how she gets around...after all, she just spent the previous weekend drinking spiked wine in central Germany. She traveled professionally last Thursday, though, via airplane since Berlin requires 8 hours on the train.

So what occupies us boys (blonde and less-blonde) while the cat is away? Hmm, well, trouble of some sort. That Thursday actually provided the first sunshine in over a week--we'd been slowly and consistently drenched (sometimes not so slowly) by intermittent drizzle and rain. So the Mud Magnet and I toured Kloten for nearly two hours Thursday AM, enjoying the clear cold skies and the nearby Schluefweg forest trails.

After returning home for our usual brief game of, "I bet you can't dry my stomach," my conversation partner passed out from exhaustion leaving me totally alone. So I biked to "downtown" Kloten to hang out at the local bakery/café (sporting a larger-than-life outside croissant display) to enjoy a double espresso and study some German vocabulary. Eventually tiring of memorizing the same 75 words, I proceeded to the ever-popular Migros grocery for foodstuffs. How here to capitalize on Steph's absence?

Of course I would never normally consider my subsequent idea but to rewind a bit...we ate dinner with a small group of Stephanie's coworkers the prior week, some of whom lived in Swiss-France for years but aren't truly Swiss. And we were discussing Swiss food and cuisine. And the Swiss happen to eat one animal that we NEVER touch in the U.S. These particular coworkers had tasted this animal and proclaimed it pretty good, similar to beef but leaner with more flavor, not unlike ostrich or buffalo. And Migros dedicates a small section to this animal but of course Steph would never entertain it...so I purchased some lettuce for a salad, some potatoes (for making a hash browns side dish that the Swiss call Rösti), a six-pack of Swiss beer and a small Pferde-Knaublach steak (Pferde is the animal; Knaublach is garlic, in this case a marinade).

What next? As you can imagine upon returning home, the boys cracked open a few beers, grated and fried up some potatoes and onions, and popped the ol' Pferde steak under the broiler. Unfortunately I overcooked it slightly, as one is wont to do with unfamiliar meats. What to say about it? No jockey marks. Fairly tasty, in the realm of ostrich or buffalo or kangaroo (I ate it in Australia). Tastes better than parboiled possum (I ate it in Chicago, that's a tricky story). I wouldn't rush to Switzerland just to try it. On the other hand, the Rösti hash browns are definitely worth a trip.

Steph returned from Berlin on Friday with common sense in tow, as we ate a reasonable Japanese meal of raw fish later that night. Swiss sushi was delicious and (!) priced quite reasonably. And the sharp yellow ginger finally washed away that nagging flavor of Knaublach marinade.

Newsflash: Snowball Survives Hell!

Chill the Pommery and warm the Vacherin! Today, our six-week anniversary of living in Switzerland, we signed the rental contract on our new Zürich apartment! And we're considering ourselves EXTRAORDINARILY fortunate with the result--the timing, the location and the apartment itself. Although I'm certain the emotion is artificially inflated on both sides, we've rollercoastered from despair to elation in a week's time. We've known for perhaps a week that the deal should close but I've avoided any mention, since jinx avoidance was routinely preached in both my undergraduate engineering and advanced business curriculum.

We knew our fortunes could change quickly but of course never thought they would. Blog followers may remember a recent post regarding our depression-averting assault on gastronomic hub Globus preceded by:

"Steph exited work slightly early on Friday afternoon to join Mr. Mssrli and me for another lovely, large (but expensive!) apartment viewing in a perfect central Zürich location called Kreuzplatz; we're unlikely candidates so I'll spare the details."

Well, for whatever reason (we've stopped asking why), they accepted us! As evidence of the senselessness of the process, we ultimately beat out the applications of TWO sets of fund managers (presumably without 40kg pets) reportedly upset by their rejection. Yeah, well, we know the feeling!

Unbelievably, the location is probably nearly the best of the dozen places I visited, with a neighborhoody feel yet great proximity to transportation including a tram AND train station (really helpful without a car) as well as the lake. And as we discovered that Friday evening, it's an easy walk to bustling Bellevueplatz and the Old Town.

The apartment is large by Zürich standards at 1,400 square feet (134m2) having what the Swiss term 4.5 rooms, which for us means 2 bedrooms, an office and a living room, plus the ".5" which is a large lofted space upstairs. In general the floor plan sizes here exceeded our expectations, so we'll need to purchase furniture to replace some stuff sold in Chicago. Whatever. There are 1-1/2 bathrooms, in-unit laundry (a "luxury" in Zürich) and a good-sized kitchen, always a priority.

The unexpected (and frankly, unrequested) bonus is the view. Ours is the top, sixth-floor unit with a large private patio with views east to the forested hillsides above the city and south over the city itself. As with the apartment, the patio also accepts dogs so we expect Hobbes to excuse himself and stay outside all winter (if he ever chooses to descend, never fear as a building elevator exists, although it's so tiny the entire family might not fit simultaneously). As the top unit, the entire apartment conveys a lofted, slanted Alpine cottage feel, bright and inviting but perhaps presenting some decorating challenges.

The only downside (if you can call it that) is the price; it's the most expensive apartment for which we applied, at the very top of our budget. But we wouldn't have viewed it if we couldn't afford it, and given the astounding event that one's application is accepted for such a property, one does not answer, "Gee, I don't know, can I think about it while fifteen more fund managers look?" Also comforting is the knowledge from viewing a dozen other apartments that, while expensive, its location and size justify the price.

So we're on Cloud Nine. We move in just before Christmas, the best present possible (apologies to Tickle Me Elmo Extreme). Our container-sized pile of belongings arrived last week, temporarily in a Swiss warehouse somewhere, and should deliver on time. Hobbes and I will miss Kloten terribly, of course--we know every square inch; Steph not quite as much. I won't elaborate on our prior despair, as our persistently sour moods threatened to spoil our entire Swiss experience--we had literally decided that the "unattainable" Kreuzplatz property was our last city-exclusive viewing before changing plans to look outside the city in December and January, a completely disheartening concession. But never mind that junk now.

We owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to relocation agent Mr. Mssrli, who worked every angle and represented us beautifully at every showing. Yesterday after guiding us through the German-written rental contract (lots of rules, those Swiss) and the mostly Swiss-German contract signing procedure downtown, Mr. Mssrli dropped Steph and me at the Hauptbahnhof to catch the train back to work and home, respectively. To be honest, we already consumed our celebratory Champagne and oozy cheese last week after we heard our application was accepted. But never one to miss a celebration sequel, I opted for a gigantic can of Löwenbräu at the Kloten train station and drank it on the bus ride home. As Mr. Mssrli would say, "How civilized!"

German Christmas Fire-Pliers

Just when you thought the weekends of stimulating cross-country journeys were finished, we managed a knockout. Steph and I (sans Hobbes, sadly) ventured to Heidelberg, Germany, last weekend to meet one of Steph's best friends from college, Missy, to experience an authentic German Christmas Market in full swing.

Early Saturday AM was uncharacteristically busy as we showered, packed an overnight bag and hustled outside an excited Golden Retriever (Hobbes hates the sight of suitcases unless he's going somewhere with them). I'd freely say that I was (and sometimes still am) excited about a car-less lifestyle but, man, the convenience can be priceless. For example, compare simply hoisting his hairy blonde butt into a back seat vs. walking 1/3 mile to purchase his ticket (dogs ride for 1/2 price) then taking a bus to the train, train to the city, waiting 15 minutes in the drizzle, then a final bus ride to friends Dave and Heather who graciously agreed to babysit Hobbes. Hobbes and Vera, their English bulldog, begin a comedy routine upon his arrival as she (about 1/5 his size) immediately rushes to guard her food bowl (smart move), he counters by stealing a toy and then when she slowly draws away to protect other toys, they simultaneously realize the food is unprotected and sprint headlong towards the bowl, sliding on the hardwood a la Scooby Doo, nearly smacking into each other and their heads into the wall in the process.

Leaving the show, after another brief walk/tram/train ride we reached Zürich's main station early enough for a coffee and cornetto (Italian version of the croissant) before the BIG train departed for Germany. The journey north to Heidelberg takes 4-1/2 hours over 200 miles with one brief transfer in Karlsruhe (see map at end of post). As a brief aside, I have a theory about what I call "Life's True & False Test." If you were periodically administered True & False tests throughout your life with questions regarding events, say, 5 or 10 years distant, I maintain everything you'd guess True would turn out False and vice versa. A classic example: a question regarding a weekend meeting in December in Germany with one of Steph's best college friends, now living in Essen, Germany for nine months as a visiting Political Science professor on a Fulbright scholarship with Steph and I living in Zürich. Um, let's see, had that question been posed of us while downing Purple Passion and Fuzzy Navels (blech!) at a 4:30am "Breakfast Club" before a Purdue football game fourteen years ago, I'd have guessed False.

Arriving at Heidelberg's main station, Steph and I instantly deciphered the bus maps (hey, we're professionals) and bussed to our quaint Old Town hotel to meet Missy (her husband, Mike, now working in Frankfurt, was unfortunately recalled to the U.S. for business and couldn't attend as originally planned). Hungry and sober, we immediately hit the nearby Christmas Markets for a solution.

Heidelberg is a popular tourist destination (sorry, Rick Steves) for Germans and foreigners alike due to its sizable Old Town--in December featuring five different Christmas "market" areas with stalls selling mostly food and drinks and some trinkets--and an enormous castle looming on a hillside over the town. The featured food is sausage (surprise!) and drink is Glühwein, inexpensive (read, cheap) red wine mulled with honey and spices and served hot--every booth serves its family recipe, of course. One particularly flashy booth lured me (not the ladies) with its special Feuerzangenbowle Glühwein, which my pocket dictionary translated as "Fire-Pliers Punch," where a large agglomerated fruit core (apple?) is doused nonstop in flaming schnapps which drips into the vat of cheap mulled wine. Hangover, anyone? Also available with any drink was a Schuß or shot of schnapps, a word we definitely won't teach to certain future visiting friends (Leys).

We toured several markets through the afternoon and evening, stopping occasionally at interesting bars to warm up with hot tea, cold beer, real wine and real food. Later Saturday night, wandering downtown in the cold, we happened upon a perfectly suitable and reasonably hip German restaurant for soup (always cream-of-something), salad (gigantic!), dessert (apple strudel) and coffee. Sunday morning we breakfasted in the hotel's lovely dungeon before attacking (well, not literally) the castle and its gardens. Pictures to elaborate:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.92c7507b&x=0&y=il6qbr

Steph, Missy and I finished with another stroll through the (then drizzly) Old Town and a fantastically delicious ham & cheese and/or Nutella crepe before again bussing to the trains home to Zürich and Essen. Missy and Mike--due to their visas expiring next summer--travel frenetically around Europe every weekend so we hope to rendezvous again somewhere soon.

Steph and I found some humor recalling our completely coincidental summer 2006 vacation to Germany/Switzerland for the World Cup, during which we differentiated almost nothing between the cultures. On this trip we found Germany oddly similar to Swiss-Germany in many ways and subtly different in others, hard to describe. One glaring difference was the prices--after a tactile adjustment to handling bulky Euros instead of slim Francs, we discovered that a lot fewer Euros buy the same stuff as many Francs; the Euro purchasing power was slightly greater even after the whopping 1.6 Francs-to-1 Euro conversion. That's good news for future European travel as fears of a fleecing by the strong Euro evaporated (once you're used to Swiss prices, that is). The other now-obvious difference is language, with the Germans enunciating their words smoothly compared to something-stuck-in-my-throat Swiss-German. And the Germans are bigger people, taller and stockier and, yes, fatter, more similar to Americans; the Swiss are slighter, more Todd-sized.

On the train home, Steph and I passed two hours by chatting the ear off a very nice German guy, unfortunately for him stuck in our same compartment; he was returning from supporting his native Frankfurt soccer team to home near Basel (Switzerland). Once back at Zürich's main station, our laid-back Sunday evening consisted of another short bus/walk/tram/train/wait at airport/bus ride to retrieve our Retriever and return home.


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The Haarschnitt Diaries

As we celebrated our five-week Swiss anniversary last Wednesday, I passed an even more exciting milestone on Thursday--six weeks since my last Chicago haircut and overdue for a trim. In Chicago I had reached the apex of men's hairstyling, that is, an old-school barbershop conveniently located in my downtown office building, operated by a friendly familiar Chicago-Italian barber named Joe Gambino who provided "the usual" monthly cut complete with Playboy magazines (great articles) and hot lather straight-razor neck shave. A hard act to follow.

Kloten and Zürich are full of coiffure establishments; although German for barber is Friseur, the Swiss universally adopt the French term. For our Thursday morning walk, Hobbes and I spent over an hour canvassing every last Kloten city coiffure (unbeknownst to Hobbes who is also overdue for a trim, we have a canine coiffure scheduled in December, but that's a different story). Although most salons advertise for both Damen and Herren, I ultimately selected a small, three-chair Herren-only barbershop primarily for its proximity adjacent to the village-style Kloten restaurant where I snarfed my first Swiss lunch, a delicious grilled pork chop seasoned with herbed butter.

The problem of course with foreign haircuts is communication of the details; I've experienced only one foreign haircut, in Ireland where the guy spoke English with such an accent that we couldn't communicate properly. To circumvent that problem, and thanks to the miracle of Internet online translation, I spent Thursday morning researching and composing my Haarschnitt Brief, i.e., my Haircut Letter. In polite prose, it requested a haircut, provided some guidelines and finished with, "Don't worry, my hair isn't beautiful so you can't make any mistakes."

At 3pm I parked my bike outside and sauntered into the shop, unoccupied but for the hairdresser, and tried my usual bit of German to confirm she spoke virtually no English--a perfect start. I produced the Letter which earned a slight chuckle and we worked out in German my return for a 4pm reservation. Once seated at the prescribed time, things proceeded swimmingly. After pantomiming with finger-scissors her plan of attack on my head--which was right on the money--she began the usual barber chair conversation in Swiss-German, e.g., where are you from? where do you work? do you have any kids?, etc., and I limped along as best I could with my limited vocabulary.

Apparently she believed I comprehended much more than I did, as she launched into a variety of subjects such as Zürich being too crowded, her boyfriend working in New York for a while and--after I said, "Work is not fun"--something about enjoying working for an e-magazine. She has two kids, a boy and a girl, ages 19 and 21 and jokingly pretended to be insulted when I didn't clarify my pronoun usage, thus accidentally proclaiming, "You are old!" instead of "They are old!"

Overall the conversation was enjoyable but agonizing because I wanted to understand and convey so much more. Prior to moving to Switzerland, I had completed an excellent year-long Spanish study program in which I've now become fairly conversational (great timing, eh? Not a soul in Switzerland speaks Spanish). Most agonizing about the haircut "dialogue" was that I completely recognize my crummy level of German because I remember that exact Spanish phase, i.e., the completely useless beginner phase. I'm certain we could have conducted the same conversation in complete depth in Spanish. Currently I know 200 German words with one verb tense vs. 2,000 Spanish words with a dozen tenses, so my relative knowledge appears about 10%. I'm also quite aware that the only method for bridging the gap is hours of weekly study and practice for 18 months or longer.

By the way, the haircut turned out perfectly. She omitted hot lather on the neck shave but used some crazy curved razor blade which worked well. So now I have another 4-6 weeks to perfect the phrase in German, "Do you carry any other magazines?"

Es stinkt wie Fondue!

After last week's big Friday night on the town, we mostly laid low the following chilly drizzly Saturday. Fully napped and bored by evening and without much food at home (we mostly avoid supermarkets on Saturdays because they're suffocatingly overcrowded as virtually all stores including supermarkets are closed Sunday), we took advantage of a rain delay to venture to a new Kloten restaurant. We're Sunday evening regulars now in the glass-enclosed non-smoking area at local favorite "village" Restaurant Löwen serving classic Swiss food--where the waitstaff's 20 words of English comfortably complement our 20 of German--but this was Saturday evening and we felt like changing the pace.

We resolved to test our luck with some British cask-conditioned ale and fish & chips at an establishment called The Londoner Pub attached to an old local hotel called The Bramen that Stephanie had spied riding the bus to her office. As we exited the bus that evening and walked past the dimly lit hotel towards the pub, the nighttime weather cooperated with its rendition of London: cloudy, damp and windy.

We pushed open the heavy door to find The Londoner...completely empty. Not a soul in sight, not even anyone smoking. Passing through the small pub, we studied the bar taps for Fuller's, Whitbread or Kilkenny, instead finding only Falken Pils, emblazoned with a falcon and decidedly NOT British. Also no fish or chips immediately visible.

Moving from The (Non-)Londoner to a larger area beyond, we discovered the entire front of the hotel harbored its own restaurant, fairly busy with an older crowd. The decor felt guildhall-esque, with deep green felt walls framed in dark wood and a sense of worn history and age. Not inspirational but not uncool in an old-Swiss-village-hotel kind of way. Hazarding a guess that the menu featured (anyone?) classic Swiss food, we approached the greeter's stand to try things out.

Utilizing our German skills to their utmost, we said "Grüezi!" to the greeter and then, "Zwei, bitte," indicating the (obvious) number of seats needed. He began mumbling rapid Swiss-German and although we didn't understand a word, his intentions were clear, gesturing first to the fully occupied front room ("I don't have two seats up here right now..."), thinking for a moment, then gesturing instead to the back room down a hallway ("We should have two seats back there but, um..."). A hesitation. Then the explanation, which I swear we understood clearly although uncertain of the exact words, something very near, "Es stinkt wie Fondue." Meaning in German, "It stinks like fondue."

After a split second spent processing this information, Steph replied, "Ja, sehr gut!" meaning, "Yes, very good!" After all, who doesn't want to stink like fondue? He nodded, grabbed two menus and escorted us down the hallway.

[Linguistic note: according to my sources, High German for "smells" is riecht and "stinks" is stinkt, pronounced schtinkt. I'm sure the nice man didn't tell us his restaurant stinks, my guess is that the unmistakable "sch-" sound that our ears translated was the Swiss-German verb for smells.]

Stretched along the hallway were two buffet tables displaying platefuls of raw sliced pork, veal, beef, shrimp, salmon and several other fish alongside at least twenty labeled dipping sauces of various colors and consistencies. The back room obviously hosted some manner of "fondue festival" and here was the command center.

Sure enough, the large back room contained plenty of seating with only three tables occupied with fondue eaters including two families, although we've noticed that often when families dine out here, they really dine out and tables of a dozen people from mismatched adult siblings to grandma to teenage punks are not uncommon. And to the greeter's credit, the aroma of boiling-oil fondue hung rather thickly.

Steph and I briefly considered joining the fondue festival but ultimately opted for lighter dining with an enormous fried wienerschnitzel and entrecôte (a grilled steak concealed by herbed butter) with mounds of french fries and accompanied by a bottle of Spanish red wine (Spanish seems like the bargain wine in Switzerland, always good and relatively value-priced). Dare we say the food was quite good, actually superior to that of the Löwen! And have I mentioned that restaurants here extract nearly identical prices regardless of location, from suburban Kloten to Zürich's Old Town to the lone mud-caked restaurant in farming village Gerlisberg? We finished by splitting a phenomenal ice cream sundae drowned in Bailey's under fresh whipped cream.

As we exited the restaurant a leisurely two and a half hours later, two of the three tables of fonduers were still going at it, sauntering occasionally to the Command Center and returning to dunk more skewers into sizzling oil. We retraced our path to the now-occupied Londoner pub to polish off a few British Falkens, follow Swiss hockey league highlights on the big TV (they love hockey here, Kloten has its own team and goalie school) and absorb some cigarette smoke.

Needless to say, even after airing out during our walk home around 1am, we indeed GESTUNKEN horribly like oil and veal and fish and cheese and smoke and deposited all clothing items down to the underpants into the washer before satisfyingly retiring for the night.

High Value Sunday Daytrips

Although not mentioned the past two weeks, we have of course continued our Sunday tradition of exciting Swiss daytrip excursions. And while any old Frommer or Fodor can instruct visitors regarding the treasures of cosmopolitan Bern or medieval Schaffhausen, we've been uncovering true hidden gems like Gerlisberg and the Schluefweg. What?!? Don't tell me you've never heard of those. They're practically lore among us denizens of suburban Kloten.

Gerlisberg is a lovely but otherwise nondescript farming village about a 35 minute walk north uphill through the corn fields of Kloten. And the Schleufweg is a series of trails on the forested hill just southeast of the Zürich airport. Perhaps their local fame hasn't crossed continental borders quite yet..?

Here's the scoop: being analytical by nature, we ran some calculations after the family trip to Bern. It's a complex yet classic system whereby we evaluate the "Value Rating" of our excursions, that is, we map the perceived Performance of each Sunday daytrip vs. its Price. Employing the popular Golden Retriever rating scale of "perceived Performance" from 0-10 (lowest to highest) and Price in CHF for a family of three yields the following results:










One may clearly conclude that, while humans may garner extra subjective cultural value from locations such as Bern, St. Gallen or Schaffhausen, a trip to the proverbial "backyard" provides up to 25 times or more value for four-legged voters. For example, this weekend's five minute bus ride to the Schluefweg was equally as stimulating for some family members as an 80-mile high speed intercity train trip with Alpine views. You mean we're going somewhere outside? Great!

That's not to say the humans alone or the whole family won't be venturing out for any more roadtrips soon. We've just stayed closer to home the past two weekends...who knows what the future holds? In the meantime, here's an assortment of pictures from recent weekends:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.au5h8kq7&x=0&y=-ahokgg

Old Town, New Market

Without providing exhausting detail, last Friday's evening concluded well. As we knew to some degree, many historic yet modern Swiss cities contain an Old Town or Altstadt neighborhood in which the charming historic architecture and streets are preserved with otherwise modern storefronts, restaurants and cafes. Zürich's Old Town is a pristine and popular example, containing the city's famous Grossmünster church and Town Hall among cobblestone streets and alleys with nostalgic names (in German) such as Butcher Street, Church Street, Market Street, and Wine Street. The current adornment of Christmas lights lends additional allure.

On Friday after Globus Bellevue, we moved slowly northward through the Aldstadt on a chilly but pleasant evening, eventually locating the Restaurant Neumarkt (New Market) on Neumarkt street for our rendezvous with a new work colleague of Steph's. Arriving too early, we instead entered an unidentified magnificent Old World-looking bar/restaurant across the street and procured the last two bar seats for another glass of wine. We observed them serving wienerschnitzel the size of your head accompanied by bright golden fries almost certainly happily prepared in animal fat.

[Note: the last time I saw fried pork tenderloins that large was at a classic hole-in-the-wall diner called Smitty's Tenderloin Shop in Des Moines, where they're almost comically served on tiny white bread hamburger buns. Iowans know a thing or two about pork and I'd highly recommend skipping breakfast and dinner the night before your next trip to Des Moines and eating lunch at Smitty's near the airport.]

We finally met Steph's work contact and her husband at Restaurant Neumarkt, one of their favorites, and enjoyed possibly our best dinner so far in Zürich; no more or less expensive than any other city or backcountry menu, the very good food inspired new hope that other great restaurants are indeed lurking nearby. Steph's contact and her husband were quite friendly, welcoming and of course, international--she was born in Hong Kong and he's a native of Paris; they met in Singapore, later married and lived in Paris prior to moving to Zürich 18 months ago for his job; they both speak English of course, and French and German to varying degrees. He attended France's renowned business school INSEAD (I had a guest professor from INSEAD at Kellogg) and had later consulted in Chicago for six months, so we chatted it up about business school, Chi-town and international soccer. He maintains the bread in Switzerland doesn't hold a candle to France's.

I'm not sure yet how interesting (or not) Steph and I are to the international set, but we'll attempt to arrange another dinner sometime and see what happens. For our part, between friendly grocery store Champagne tasters and new contacts with good restaurant knowledge, we're staying fairly entertained.

Circumnavigating the Globus

Unfortunately but perhaps not unexpectedly, our housing fortunes hit the skids again last week. By Tuesday we had received rejections for all rental applications submitted so far. Particularly galling was the Wipkingen apartment rejection for which, due to serendipitous timing, ours was one of only two applications submitted rather than 15 or 30. Our relocation agent Mr. Mssrli marvelously positioned us as first choice with the listing agency; when they phoned the landlady with our application as the top selection, she reneged on the "pets allowed" clause deciding that only cats were acceptable. So the other applicant won instead. Pure and utter Scheiße (don't translate that word).

Mr. Mssrli, whom as half-English and -Swiss always handles himself with utmost composure, informed me that he became "unduly cross" with the listing agency and asked quite vehemently if we would have been accepted had we "owned a parrot or a monkey instead of a dog." In wonderfully unflappable Swiss fashion, the woman answered, "Well, we've never had that situation."

On Tuesday--the same day as the Wipkingen rejection--we attended another "pets allowed," overrun open showing where the landlord, as Mr. Mssrli introduced us on-site, inquired what kind of dog we owned and then stated that labrador breeds did not qualify and thanked us for viewing. Showings in general slowed again last week as the Dec 1 property deadlines passed; to say we're not enthused about prospects in December as half the world shuts down for two weeks is grossly understated. So procuring permanent housing continues as our daily throbbing thorn in what has otherwise been a very good experience. And how do Steph and I grapple with stress? That's right, we eat and drink through it!

As a precursor, Steph exited work slightly early on Friday afternoon to join Mr. Mssrli and me for another lovely, large (but expensive!) apartment viewing in a perfect central Zürich location called Kreuzplatz; we're unlikely candidates so I'll spare the details, but afterwords Steph and I found ourselves with several hours to kill before previously-made late dinner reservations. Deciding not to return to Kloten and fortuitously both having eaten a light lunch, we instead began an unplanned attack on any gastronomical obstacle in our path. We conducted warm-up drills with an espresso and cappuccino at a nearby corner cafe with a somewhat Bohemian feel called...Bohemia. From there, descending from Kreuzplatz to a favorite locale, Bellevueplatz, we launched our opening volley at a store called Globus.

Globus is a "high end" grocery/delicatessen (akin to New York's Dean & DeLuca) owned by the ubiquitous Migros, Switzerland's #1 grocery chain. Recall for a moment the Swiss "low end" is suburban gas stations serving world-class bread and pastries; the "medium range" is locally farmed and daily fresh produce, meat and dairy of phenomenal quality; the high end is Globus. Regarding other high end groceries, perhaps you've heard the joke about Whole Foods being nicknamed Whole Paycheck? Well, Globus is Whole Paycheck for Zürich's bankers and jewelers.

We passed through the ground floor delicatessen and proceeded downstairs to peruse the grocery (Steph visited back in September, I had not). Of course, both the food and service shine spectacularly--customers don't even handle their own produce, they simply point to the fruit or vegetable of choice and an Executive Produce Consultant bags and weighs it. Meandering slowly but drawn inexorably as if by an invisible magnet, we arrived to a stand with three chilling wine bottles--a complementary Pommery Champagne tasting. Champagne is Steph's desert island drink, i.e., her one desired drink if stranded on a desert island. The only time we don't enjoy Champagne is when it's administered intravenously because the bubbles are slightly less refreshing.

We hit it off with the Pommery tasting host, a native of Zürich who really liked America from time spent working at Disneyland in Anaheim as a youth and later traveling around with Swiss Air. The "tastes" were quite generous, none of the stingy "1/2 oz. per customer" routine. After the requisite three samples, he provided another two because I think he enjoyed talking to us and because he said many Swiss had refused free samples earlier in the afternoon for lame reasons like working or driving, slightly irritating him. We reciprocated by buying a bottle for a special occasion, specifically promising to pop it open with a vengeance on the inevitable day that our first apartment application is accepted.

With defenses down and the purchasing "seal" broken, we wandered to the coffee section to buy Italian coffee and then to the cheese section because, of course, they carry our somewhat hard-to-find favorite from France called Vacherin (although we're now told it originated in Switzerland); categorized as a soft cheese, it's actually semi-liquid because when warm it oozes all over everything (a good oozing, though). We passed another tasting table featuring sweet Italian Christmas bread, Panettone, where an older Swiss gentleman somehow kindly insisted in Swiss-German--never speaking a word of English--that we try it, which we did. He continued to attempt conversation, so I showcased my new poor German skills by telling him that we came from the U.S., that Steph worked for Hyatt, and that we've been living in Switzerland for one month. At the end of the brief but pleasant exchange, he pointed to Steph and said one English word, "Happy!" which is indeed an excellent description of her personality.

After touring the wine section, we began another short-lived tasting but understandably lost our friendly English-speaking host when two dapper Swiss business gentlemen arrived emanating strong signals they might each purchase 5,000 CHF of wine from him before 7pm. So we returned to the upstairs delicatessen for an aperitif and appetizer, sharing a fantastic panini-type sandwich and some tapas, including a cow-fresh-cream-cheese-wrapped-in-prosciutto thing for which you'd gladly trade your children, and two more glasses of wine. We relinquished our valuable seats as the Friday after-work crowd plowed in and headed towards the nearby historic Old Town neighborhood to find our next hapless victim before dinner.